


Stars

by khilari



Category: Nameless: The one thing you must recall
Genre: Multi, Some Spoilers, between secret endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:53:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3710467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yeonho tries to figure out how he feels about their new situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars

There was someone unexpected outside the gate, gazing up at the stars with an almost blank expression.

‘Ah, Lance.’ Yeonho ran over, stopping next to Lance. ‘Were you wishing on the stars?’

Lance looked at him but didn’t answer. Yeonho smiled.

‘Eri showed me how. She wished for the cat’s happiness,’ he said.

‘…to me too.’ Lance closed his eyes for a moment and then returned to looking at the stars. ‘Do you believe in such things?’

‘Hehe. I didn’t, I thought it was just something people wanted to believe to feel better. But maybe it worked.’ The stars overhead were beautiful and Yeonho remembered his wish — for John, because Eri had expected it, and his own desperate wish for himself. ‘Lance, what were you wishing for?’

‘…Was she happy with you?’

‘Ah. I think so.’ Yeonho closed his eyes, thinking of the time he’d spent with her. ‘We hadn’t been together for long. We only made it official right before she vanished.’ It was strange to think of other worlds, and hard to think of ones in which Eri hadn’t loved him, but Yeonho had to ask. ‘Was she happy with you?’

‘I thought so,’ said Lance quietly.

‘You don’t think so now?’ Yeonho turned to look at his friend. Lance was frowning, pensive.

‘No, she was, but…’ Lance sighed. ‘If we put everyone’s stories together and measure… who she was happiest with, or made the most memories with, or who did the most for her… I don’t think I can win.’

‘Me neither.’ Yeonho’s chest ached and he could feel tears pricking at his eyes, but there was no use in crying over it. ‘Would you wish to be her boyfriend again?’

Yeonho’s sense of Lance flickered, strangely, like a guttering candle, and Yeonho glanced sideways quickly to check he was still there, pale in the starlight. Then Lance seemed to pull himself together, shook his head with an impatient flick, and Yeonho could sense him as he always did, low but steady.

‘We can’t wish for things like that. She’s our owner,’ Lance said as if that settled it.

Yeonho nodded, knowing what he meant.

* * *

‘Do you know things?’ Yeonho asked. The air smelled of sugar, butter, flour.

‘I know that butter isn’t rubbed in well enough yet,’ Tei said, leaning over. ‘Do your fingers hurt?’

‘Ah, hehe.’ Yeonho ceded the bowl to Tei, watching those strong fingers rub butter into the cake mix. His own fingers did ache, he rubbed them together more than necessary as he rinsed the butter off. ‘But I mean, really, Tei. You always knew things before.’

Tei considered. ‘It might not be quite over yet, sometimes it feels like there are still feathers in the air,’ he said. ‘But we’ll stay human, and we’ll keep the memories we have, I think. Is that what you wanted to know?’

Yeonho closed his eyes and cocked his head, but he couldn’t feel feathers in the air. Bits of soul or magic, or whatever they might be. Red was using the computer in his room, Yeonho could feel the hum of it and Red’s presence if he stretched, but that was all. ‘Mm. Not really. But thank you.’

‘I can’t tell you who she’ll choose or whether she’ll choose.’ Tei’s voice was gentle, the tips of his fingers were crushing as much as rubbing.

‘It’s… not that either. Of course I miss her!’ Yeonho buried his wet hands in the towel so that Tei wouldn’t see them clenched into fists. ‘But won’t she choose Red?’

‘Mmm. I think this is done, what’s next on the recipe?’

‘Oh…’ Yeonho had to wrench his thoughts back to the matter at hand. ‘Eggs!’

The cake was finished and in the oven, Tei was getting out the ingredients for dinner, and Yeonho was about to go and do his homework when he had one last try at forumalating the question. ‘But, Tei,’ he asked, hovering at the edge of the kitchen. ‘Will we be okay?’

Tei looked at him, smiling slightly in the way he always did, and then walked over and petted Yeonho’s hair. ‘I’d like to say we’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘But that… I really don’t know.’

* * *

Yeonho pushed open the door to the music room and soft melody flooded out making him smile. He pushed the door shut behind him and leant against it, not wanting to interrupt, until the music halted by itself.

‘Huh, kiddo? What are you doing here?’ Yuri asked, raising his hands from the piano.

Yeonho smiled brightly at him. ‘I didn’t understand the last lesson very well, can you explain this to me?’

Yuri shifted sideways and patted the piano stool next to him. Yeonho ran over at once and held his homework out. The lesson really had been difficult and he listened to Yuri’s explanation attentively, but when Yuri was done he remained in place, fidgetting with his school uniform.

‘Out with it, kiddo,’ said Yuri.

‘You didn’t come home last night,’ Yeonho said, looking at the piano rather than Yuri. ‘Were you with another woman?’

‘Oh? Is that a question a kid should be asking?’

‘I’m serious, Yuri!’ Yeonho looked up into Yuri’s smiling face. ‘Have you… have you given up on her?’

Yuri’s eyebrows went up, but Yeonho couldn’t read his expression. The sense of him in the air was as sparkling as ever, like light on the surface of water, but it hid everything below. ‘Are you hoping I have? It’s a good thing if the competition forfeits.’

‘I - I -’ Yeonho lowered his head. Of course he’d be glad if Eri looked at him like that again, as a boyfriend, as her most precious person. But what he was scared of wasn’t losing her, he was prepared for that, could see it coming. Was already grieving for it. There was something else, a different kind of fear. ‘I just want to know.’

‘No, I haven’t. And I wasn’t. Even if she doesn’t love me, I’ll be faithful.’ Yuri smiled, wryly. ‘The other possibilities are no fun anymore.’

‘Yuri, you’re… a… a good doll. And I’m sorry.’

Yuri laughed and ruffled Yeonho’s hair. ‘Stop asking personal questions of teachers and run along. Get some lunch before break’s over.’

‘Okay!’ Yeonho slid off the piano stool feeling oddly lighter and not sure why. ‘Thank you.’

* * *

Lance was out at the library so there was no one to mind if Yeonho and Red played noisy computer games in Red’s room.

‘Yes! Yes, take that!’ Red was yelling, and then he whooped as the K.O. screen came up.

Yeonho took his hands off the arrow buttons, laughing. ‘Well played, Red.’

‘Haha! A win for justice!’ Red sat back too. ‘You played well too, Yeonho. You’re getting better!’

‘I still can’t keep up with you.’ Not that Yeonho minded. There were a lot of things that he needed to do better at, but Red’s games were just fun even if he was terrible at them. He hesitated. ‘It still seems strange, not being called Yellow.’

‘You never believed that stuff,’ said Red, sounding suddenly subdued. Yeonho wondered if he shouldn’t have said anything, Red not flaring with energy was worrying.

‘Hehe. I liked it though,’ he said, awkwardly. ‘Even if we weren’t really a team of superheroes, you always thought of us as a team, so I felt included.’

‘I still think of you like that whatever I call you.’

‘Ah!’ Of course Red would say something like that, but today it seemed to touch on something Yeonho had been feeling all along. ‘You - you know, you weren’t really wrong, about a lot of things, even if I didn’t believe. You do have special powers and… if the mission is protecting Eri… we’ll all do everything we can.’

‘Right! Our mission is to protect the heroine!’ Red exclaimed it with enthusiasm.

‘And, you know…’ If Eri chose Red then he wouldn’t mind the rest of them staying, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the rest of them would mind. ‘I want us to stay together. Whether we’re a team or a family, I don’t want to lose any one of us.’

‘Do you think we might?’ Red sounded worried now and he’d turned to look full on at Yeonho, seriously concerned with what Yeonho thought.

‘I think people are going to get hurt. And if they do, they might run away from that.’

‘Mm.’ Red closed his eyes and frowned. ‘I did that, in my world. But I came back and I was sorry for leaving.’

‘Ah, really?’ It was hard to imagine Red running away from anything.

Red nodded, then opened his eyes. ‘So, if anyone runs away, I think we should go and find them, because I don’t think anyone really wants to leave. And a justice warrior never abandons his comrades!’

Yeonho smiled at the last sentence. ‘You know, Red, I think you might be right again.’

‘Of course!’ Red smiled back at him and then turned to the computer screen. ‘Want to play another round?’

* * *

The stars were out again, but this time Yeonho was standing underneath them alone, gazing up at them. ‘I wish for us all to stay safe and together,’ he whispered to them, but afterwards he stayed where he was. It wasn’t the stars he was out here to talk to.

‘Yeonho?’ Eri’s voice made him turn, smiling. ‘Were you waiting for me?’

‘Did you have a good time at Banjul?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but why are you waiting for me out here? Aren’t you cold?’ She came towards him.

Yeonho took the few steps to meet her and did what he’d done once before, just as shyly. He put his hands on her shoulders and reached up to kiss her forehead. To his surprise he didn’t have to stretch as far now as he had then.

‘Yeo - Yeonho! You can’t!’ Her reaction was almost the same too, embarrassed and starting back from him.

‘Because the others would be hurt if they could see?’ he asked.

‘That and… and you might be hurt. If I make you expect more and then…’ She looked at him with troubled eyes.

‘Will you love me, even if you don’t choose me?’ he asked.

‘Of course! Yeonho, I love all of you so much! That’s the problem, you’re so precious to me and you always will be.’

‘I believe that. So, I want to make a promise.’

‘A - a promise?’ She looked nervous and it made Yeonho feel sorry, that he’d done things in the past that gave her reason to be.

‘I promise whatever you give me I won’t expect more. And whatever you give the others I’ll believe you love me, even if you give one of them more than you can give me. Even if I’m hurt, I’ll keep believing.’

‘Yeonho, what do you mean? I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.’ She reached up to stroke his hair back, as she’d done so many times before, and he smiled and leaned into it, enjoying the affection.

‘I’ve been thinking and… I think if you stay still for fear of hurting anyone we’re going to be hurt anyway. So I wanted you to know that when you decide to move you shouldn’t worry about me.’ They were standing with his hands on her shoulders and her hand in his hair, not quite embracing but close enough to feel one another’s warm breath ghosting across their faces.

Eri turned red suddenly and pulled back as if she’d just noticed. ‘We should go inside,’ she muttered without looking at him, already walking towards the door. Yeonho waited, taking one last look up at the friendly stars, and then ran along in her wake.


End file.
